ABC Interested In Taking On A 'Star Wars' Live Action TV Series

By
Ken Guidry
|
The PlaylistJanuary 11, 2013 at 10:03AM

Surely, the first thing that came to people’s minds when they heard Disney bought out Lucasfilm was the possibility of more "Star Wars" films. That one was a given. Well, it turns out that Disney has much more in mind than just another "Star Wars" trilogy, how about a live action TV series as well?

Surely, the first thing that came to people’s minds when they heard Disney bought out Lucasfilm was the possibility of more "Star Wars" films. That one was a given. Well, it turns out that Disney has much more in mind than just another "Star Wars" trilogy, how about a live action TV series as well?

ABC entertainment president Paul Leerecently told Entertainment Weekly that he was indeed interested in collaborating with Lucasfilm on a TV series the company had shelved a couple of years ago. “We’d love to do something with Lucasfilm, we’re not sure what yet,” Lee told the magazine. “We haven’t even sat down with them. We’re going to look at [the live-action series], we’re going to look at all of them, and see what’s right. We weren’t able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It’s definitely going to be part of the conversation.”

You may recall that Lucasfilm once tried to get a TV series made a while back but were discouraged at the $5 million/episode pricetag. The combination of that and a TV channel having to pay a licensing fee put forth too many hurdles so they shelved the project. But now? Disney owns the company so a licensing fee would no longer be an issue.

Former Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum had hired writers such as Ron Moore ("Battlestar Galactica") to work on the project and fifty scripts wound up being written. The series was to said to possibly feature a bounty hunter as the main character, and be set between episodes III and IV centering around “rival families struggling over the control of the seedy underside of the Star Wars universe.” McCallum has previously extolled just how complex and adult the series would be, describing it as “'Deadwood' in space.” The time period it was set during was supposed to allow for classic "Star Wars" characters to appear on the show. They also had a whole team of concept artists and designers to work on characters, costumes, and sets.

Needless to say, now that Lucasfilm and ABC are all in the same family, don’t be surprised to hear more talk about a "Star Wars" TV series in the future. But given the fact that a new "Star Wars" film is expected to come in just two years, could the addition of a whole TV series be too much of a good thing?